Criminal Justice Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Criminal Justice - Term Paper Example The inherent argument for the death penalty lies in retribution. In this sense, an individual attains punishment for a given wrongdoing. Death penalty, in this sense, is seen as any other type of punishment, but is meant for heavier crimes. It is essential to highlight the basic arguments behind retribution. To begin with, a guilty person deserves punishment. Furthermore, only a guilty person should receive punishment. The argument behind retribution proposes that an individual deserves punishment that is commensurate to severity of crime committed. In essence, this argument proposes that true justice should make people suffer for their wrongdoing. Win addition, a criminal should acquire punishment that their crime deserves. In close relation to the former argument, the death penalty is represented as a will of the people. It is essential to note that each society has a set of norms that it ensures its members follow, such norms, therefore, are assumed to reflect the will of every member of the community. A society consequently develops to bear particular stance against what it considers as deviation from the norm. In popular terms, deviation from norms is crime. In addition, the society develops clusters for crime and enlists others as undeserving of mercy against the individual who commits the same. The society deems such types of crime as acts that any sane individual should not commit. On committing such types of crime, therefore, the society enacts harsh punishment on the criminal. This mode of argument sanitizes capital punishment as reflective of a society’s will against certain types of behavior. Capital punishment, in this frame, manifests the society abhorrence for given forms of crime. A common disagreement about this mode of argument pertains to the idea that a society’s judgment is always subjective. Subjectivity creates significant room for bias that vilifies the lives of people who are different